Heyman’s Latest: Harvey, Murphy, Kennedy, Wieters, Phillies

Mets righty Matt Harvey and agent Scott Boras took out an insurance policy on the right-hander’s arm, writes Jon Heyman of CBS Sports in his latest Inside Baseball column. The policy covers a mere fraction of Harvey’s overall earning potential, says Heyman, but it does give him a bit of a safety net in the event that his workload following Tommy John surgery leads to future arm complications. Heyman notes that Harvey’s dominant outing in Game 1 of the NLCS “all but obliterated” other teams’ chances of trading for the right-hander, who was lauded by the Citi Field faithful. Never one to pass up the chance for a memorable quote, Boras said of Harvey’s performance on a cold New York evening: “Forget Batman. He’s Mr. Freeze.”

A few more highlights from the column…

While multiple reports have indicated that the Mets aren’t planning on giving Daniel Murphy a qualifying offer, one rival GM tells Heyman that they “absolutely have to” extend the QO on the heels of Murphy’s huge postseason. The GM added that Murphy should reject the offer and look to capitalize on the five homers he’s launched since the NLDS got underway.

The Padres appear to have interest in a reunion with starter Ian Kennedy, per the report. It’s likely, of course, that there will be competition. As Heyman notes, the 30-year-old righty has sustained the gains in velocity and strikeout rate that he showed last year — in fact, his 9.3 K/9 is second only to David Price among free agents — and has been a reliable source of innings for the last six years.

Catcher Matt Wieters will draw some open-market interest from the Rangers, but only if he avoids a qualifying offer. Texas would not have interest in giving up its first-round pick to ink Wieters, says Heyman.

The Phillies haven’t yet called Jim Hendry about their open GM seat. He teamed with new Philadelphia president Andy MacPhail with the Cubs. But Heyman writes that the Phils appear to be angling toward younger candidates. Though we haven’t heard much lately on the status of Kim Ng, one source says that she remains in the mix.

Comments

Kennedy was a waste of money at $9.5 million. He had a 4.28 ERA and a 4.51 FIP that shows that his bad ERA was no fluke. He gave up 1.66 HR/9 and he only pitched 168 innings. Giving him either a QO or a long term deal would be an astonishingly bad decision. If another team wants him let him walk.

He was a waste of money per bWAR and fWAR, but a good portion of that was due to bad luck and thus flukey.

His HR/9 was high because his HR/FB was high at 17.2%, which most pitchers regress to 10%. That’s why a lot of analysts use xFIP, which regresses the HR hit to the mean, and Kennedy had a 3.70 xFIP, which is more in line with what he was paid, and average level starter. And that aligns with his 3.61 SIERA. So, yes, his 4.28 ERA was a fluke.

Plus, part of this was because of the Padres moving their fences in. Without that, he probably would have had a nice season in the mid-3 ERA region, and nobody would be complaining. But him being a flyball pitcher, moving in the fences certainly didn’t help him out.

In addition, it was a fluke that he pitched only 168 innings. He averaged 201.1 IP over his prior 5 seasons. He has been a horse in any rotation he has been in until this season. A hamstring strain costed him time in April, and it happened during his first start. While those do recur, this isn’t a part of the body related to overuse of the pitcher, and a team should be able to handle a starter being out for a few weeks.

A QO would be way too much for him, and I would bet that he would take it in a heartbeat so that he can be well paid in 2016 while trying to pitch well enough to get a big contract after next season. Padres GM would be a fool to offer a QO, as Kennedy would take it.

I could see the Giants signing him to a 3 year contract in the $30-40M range, as he would benefit from AT&T, and they could use a reliable starter.

Kennedy is a Boras client. Boras would never let him take the QO. And because Preller didn’t trade Kennedy at the deadline he really has no choice but to give him a QO. The QO may pay him well for 2016 but Major League ballplayers want long-term job security. Kennedy is about to turn 31, so it’s about time he goes for that long-term contract. He’s not going to get $15.8m annually, but I could see him getting a total guarantee around $40m.

I feel like every story about the Mets not offering Murphy a QO is purported by one ‘rival GM’. I am convinced that this ‘rival GM’ is completely making this up (which brings up another point: why would a ‘rival’ GM know anything about the Mets’ contract plans?).

We know two absolute facts, here: Daniel Murphy will not accept a QO, and some team out there is going to sign him whether he has a QO attached or not. The Mets not offering Murphy a QO would be tantamount to throwing away a 1st round pick. It makes no sense. They will QO him as soon as they’re given the chance.

Even further, Murphy accepting a QO wouldn’t be a big deal. It’d only be a one year deal and would help the Mets bridge the gap to Herrera at 2B and would help David Wright get rest (I can’t see Wright playing more than 120 games even if he’s perfectly healthy).